! How the West was Lost: Investigating Scheduling Bias in the NFL

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1 54 Virginia Policy Review How the West was Lost: Investigating Scheduling Bias in the NFL Byron Furtick The National Football League (NFL) is a geographically, financially, and economically gigantic organization. The policies and systematic management of the NFL affect their many employees and players, but also the local economies in which the teams operate and the personal finances of millions of fans across the country. Prior to the 2009 season, NFL authorities proposed a plan to alter the regular season scheduling in attempt to account for the difficulty of West Coast teams travelling eastward. The proposal targeted certain conditions regarding scheduling for West Coast teams for away games in order to increase fairness across the league. For example, it would have discouraged the practice of having West Coast teams travel east to play in the 1:00 pm EST time slot. However, the plans set forth in the proposal were eventually abandoned and NFL Commissioner Rodger Goodell stated that the league had not seen specific information suggesting early starts [for West Coast teams traveling east] could create a competitive disadvantage for visiting teams." i This paper investigates the type of specific information necessary for the Commissioner to support an alteration in the scheduling model. The results of the investigation were statistically inconclusive. However, the analysis suggests that a more extensive data set, using the same analytical technique, could provide evidence of a systematic disadvantage for West Coast teams forced to travel east. Introduction The National Football League is the largest revenue generating sports league in the United States, producing yearly revenues that are consistently greater than that of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball (MLB) combined. With the large amount of revenue generated and the comparatively few regular season games each season, there is a great deal of importance placed on every individual regular season game played. This report reveals the results of an investigation into the effects of desynchronosis, or jet lag, on regular season game scheduling and win probabilities in the National Football League. The medical effects of jet lag are well documented, but there are other effects pertinent to the National Football League that could have an impact on creating a

2 competitive disadvantage for certain teams that are discussed further within this paper. Policy Relevance If there is an unfavorable bias in scheduling for Pacific Time Zone teams, then certain franchises and their home cities could be receiving a competitive and an economic advantage. Forbes developed a formula that uses the average team payroll divided by the average number of regular season wins as a rough estimator of the value of a single regular season game. Using this calculation, an average NFL game is worth approximately $13.3 million. Furthermore, during the playoffs the National Football League awards wild-card winning teams $650,000 and $590,000 to the losing team. Similarly, regardless of outcomes, the divisional round awards are an additional $650,000 and for the conference championship games and additional $1.01 million regardless of outcome. The Super Bowl winners are awarded $4.108 million while the losing team receives $2.878 million. ii These numbers are low estimates because they represent only the incentive awards given by the league and do not represent the additional sources of profit outlined above. Forbes has calculated that when controlling for ticket revenue, cost Virginia Policy Review 55 of living in various cities, media endorsements and so forth, a single regular season win in the NFL can benefit a franchise somewhere between 5 to 7 million dollars. Due to the nature of the NFL salary-cap and payment incentives, the individual players see only a portion of this economic benefit. So where does all this money go? A portion goes back to the league, but the rest goes to the individual franchises to be used in areas outside of player salary. There is an enormous discrepancy in the economic impact of a winning franchise to its community as opposed to a losing franchise. Even overlooking that aspect, the money received by a franchise without a salary cap is the stream of money that NFL franchises give back to the community through various charitable community works, such as Sports-related medical research grants and funding for current and former NFL players working in the local community. The recently launched youth initiative NFL Play60 is largely funded from this stream of individual franchise money. Considering the economic impact each game brings to a team s respective community, if there was an inherent bias within the method of scheduling used by the NFL, the amount of money that stands to be unfairly allocated to eastern teams and their home cities is staggering. Western

3 56 Virginia Policy Review communities should certainly be concerned. The Problem with Jet Lag Evidence shows that the determining factors as to whether an individual suffers jet lag and to what magnitude they feel the symptoms are both the direction and distance of travel. Symptoms appear more severe when travelling west to east than when travelling east to west. iii The reason for this is due to the way the human body s circadian rhythm handles the loss or gain of hours when crossing time zones. This biological process oscillates on a 24 hour cycle mirroring the Earth s rotation. A person s circadian rhythm initially persists regardless of external cues, but can eventually adjust to the local time. One study conducted by Bjoern Lemmer from Ruprecht- Karls University Heidelberg in Mannheim, Germany measured the effects of jet lag on professional male athletes. Lemmer found that, in addition to the conditions previously mentioned above, cortisol, melatonin, body temperature, and grip strength were all negatively affected by coast to coast travel, and more so in the cases of athletes traveling west to east. iv Cortisol and melatonin regulation are crucial to athletes ability to both prepare for a game, as well as perform in competition. Geographic Theory With over half the league s teams located in the same Eastern time zone, it is not surprising that Eastern Time Zone teams produce more wins overall. One would expect there to be more losses as well, and numerically, this is the case. However, when the ratio of number of teams to losses is studied, this paper s regression returned a hint of a bias towards East Coast teams, who have a lower proportion of losses than other time zones. The data shows an inverse relationship between the how far east a team is located in the win percentage over the last decade. Kickoff Time Theory Aside from geographic data, there is also merit into looking at individual kickoff times to determine if there is an underlying disadvantage for West Coast teams. There is no way to completely eliminate coast to coast travel based on the rotation schedule, but if west to east travel present a more taxing challenge than east to west travel, the league should focus on mitigating this bias. Smith found that for the primetime games on Sunday and Monday night (which normally have a kickoff time of 8:30 EST), West Coast teams actually win more often than East Coast teams. West Coast teams even performed significantly better than predicted by the universally respected Las

4 Vegas point spread. This is because 8:30 pm is outside of East Coast teams' peak performance hours but inside the West Coast peak. This paper s regression results showed that only West Coast teams had a positive coefficient associated with probability of winning late kickoff games. While these results were not statistically significant, this practically implies that West Coast teams are actually better suited to play in later starting games, regardless of what time zone the game is played in. In any late kickoff game, regardless of which of the four time zones the game is located in, a West Coast team will be closer to peak athletic hours than a non-west Coast team. Smith hypothesized in his study that this late game advantage may even be significant enough to neutralize the home field advantage of an East Coast team hosting a West Coast team. It is important to remember that while West Coast teams may gain an advantage while playing in the late game kickoff time, there are typically only two late games (the Sunday night and Monday Night game) played in a week as opposed to the seven to nine early kickoff games. Therefore the advantage gained by the West Coast teams fortunate enough to be assigned a late kickoff game is almost completely negated by the multiple number of early kickoff games that each West Coast team will have to play. Virginia Policy Review 57 The best method of scheduling teams is to intentionally schedule fewer early afternoon EST kickoff times for West Coast teams, so that both teams can play during their peak performance hours. Sometimes the scheduling will be such that an early afternoon start is unavoidable, and this report does not advocate for the total elimination of these games any more than it advocates for the disproportionate addition of evening games in the West Coast s favor. Rather, kickoff time should be heavily considered when scheduling, and, when possible, West Coast teams should be given priority in scheduling for the midafternoon kickoff games. Regression Results The results of a probit model were encouraging but did not directly support the hypothesis that West Coast teams are at an inherent disadvantage. The coefficient representing for probability of winning a game increased as the time zone moved west to east with the exception of East Coast based teams, which had the lowest coefficient of all four time-zones. This is most likely due to the heavily skewed distribution of teams as far as time zone location. With fifteen teams in the three non-eastern Time zones and seventeen in Eastern Time, there are more underperforming teams in the Eastern Time than any other time zone. With only three years worth of data the report was unable to capture historical trends

5 58 Virginia Policy Review and is heavily influenced by team s most recent performances. This combined with the fact that over half the teams in the NFL are based in the Eastern Time Zone creates an inherent bias in the data set. This problem could be overcome by adding more individual game data from seasons going back beyond All coefficients from the previously mentioned probit model were statistically significant with p values of for Pacific and Eastern team and for Mountain and Central teams. The confidence interval in all four cases again indicated a need to collect more individual data from previous season. Discussion The NFL is somewhat limited in what can done in balancing the competitive advantages and disadvantages that are present in the league. Teams are located based on city population, demand for an NFL franchise and ability to support that franchise. The structure of the divisions within the league go a long way to help balance potential biases because teams compete within their division for playoff berths and the divisions are based upon geographic locations. However the NFL remains the most geographically disproportionate league of the major three American sports. This results in situations such as the St. Louis Rams playing in the NFC West division, while the Dallas Cowboys, located nearly 350 miles further west that St. Louis, compete in the NFC East. One reason for this is that the league wants to avoid altering historical rivalries, or some of the most highly anticipated regular season games. For instance, the league would experience negative public backlash if it swapped the Rams and the Cowboys, losing the Cowboys vs. Giants, Cowboys vs. Redskins and Cowboys vs. Eagles games that are part of the NFC East divisional schedule. Despite these entrenched rivalries, there is still some flexibility in changing the geographical landscape of the NFL. Relocation to Los Angeles Relocating a team to the West Coast would reduce the number of overall trips West Coast teams would need to make eastward. If it is true that it is harder to for West Coast teams to travel east, a new Los Angeles team at the expense of relocating an East Coast based franchise would partially address this imbalance. Due to the stability of a 32-team league, if Los Angeles received an NFL franchise it will most likely be a relocation of a current team rather than an expansion team. Five teams are repeatedly mentioned as candidates for moving to Los Angeles: the Minnesota Vikings, Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers, St. Louis Rams and Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jacksonville Jaguars are the only one of these potential candidates based in the Eastern

6 Time Zone, and play in the league's fourth smallest market. In comparison, Los Angeles is the nation's second largest sports market behind only New York City, which currently has two different NFL Franchises. Financially, the move makes even sense considering Jacksonville has consistently finished in the bottom five for NFL ticket sales and crowd attendance. According to Forbes, Jaguars owner Shahid Khan paid $760 million for the Jaguars in November of At that time Forbes and various other financial estimators project the value of a Los Angeles franchise to be about $1.5 billion. Relocating the Jaguars to the Los Angeles market makes financial sense and would constitute the single most impactful measure taken by the NFL in helping to balance the geographic spread of the league, assuming the divisions are realigned to reflect geography. Further Investigation There were limiting factors that, given additional time, could have been incorporated into this report. Due to time restrictions only data from the seasons were used; ideally the report would have at least collected data dating as far back as the 2002 season. There is data easily available for all variables used in this report dating as far back as A broader time range of variables could yield more statistically significant results. Virginia Policy Review 59 Even controlling for team performances, a team could perform unusually well or poorly for a season and alter the results. For example, in the 2011 season, perennial pro-bowler and future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning did not play the entire season due to a neck injury. His absence changed the Indianapolis Colts from a Super Bowl contender to the worst team in the league. The first step in controlling for injuries such as Peyton Manning's would be to assign each player a numerical number value based on value added. The formula for estimating this already exists and is used annually when the NFL collaborates with Electronic Arts (or E.A.) Sports in applying a numerical value based on ability in the yearly release of the Madden video game. The individual player rating would be multiplied with a position-based coefficient; a 97 rated quarterback worth more than a 97 rated punter. This metric could then be used to determine and control for an injured player s value above replacement. Conclusion The regressions in this analysis did not produce statistically significant evidence that West Coast teams suffer from a competitive disadvantage due to eastward travel. However, the medical literature suggests a greater presence in jet lag symptoms when traveling west to east as opposed to east to west,

7 60 Virginia Policy Review which was not reflected in the data. There are two primary reasons this could have occurred. The first is that the data set did not capture enough data points to show a small, persistent competitive disadvantage over time, or to distinguish such a disadvantage from the common fluctuations of various team performances. The second is that over time, west coast teams have become good at compensating for a long-existing competitive disadvantage. Over 75 years of coast-to-coast competition, west coast teams may have found effective methods of reducing the effects of jet lag when having to travel eastward for games. David W.; Hill, Corinne M.; Fields, Kelly L.; Smith, Jimmy C.Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol 18(1), Mar 1993, doi: /h iv Jet lag in athletes after Eastward and Westward time-zone transition. Lemmer B, Kern RI, Nold G, Lohrer H. Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany. In any case, further research is warranted, especially temporal expansion of the data set and additional controls. This expanded work may well support the hypothesis that west coast teams suffer from a competitive disadvantage due to eastward travel, or that they are forced to incur significant costs in order to compensate. Given significant financial implications for the league, owners, fans, and local economies, this study is well worth pursuing. i Sando, Mike. West Coast Teams Uphill Fight with NFL. ESPN NFL Report, May ii Figures in 2011 dollar values, reported by Chicago Times Media iii Effects of jet lag on factors related to sport performance. Hill,